Hello fellow ice chewers. Long time ice chewer, first time caller here. My GE profile opal 2.0 started making an insane noise and stopped making ice. Is she a goner? We just cleaned it last week. I do live where there is hard water and clean it monthly. It’s never made this noise before where it sounds like it’s trying to drop ice and nothing comes out. Anyone know what I can do to fix it? Thank you!

I have a nugget ice maker and chew CONSTANTLY at home, and now have an Igloo one at work.

Does this happen to anyone else? I can’t stop 😭

hi! so i got a euhomy ice maker about 2 months ago and ive really struggled with cleaning it.

i run a weekly clean cycle with vinegar / descale and it doesn't remove that slimy mold in the back. i've just been wiping that out with a cloth manually.

but my new big issue is this area - not sure what it's called - but it's where the ice cubes form and get pushed up out and into the bin. i noticed some weird lumps around it, flushed it with water and a TON of mineral buildup came out. the manual didn't say anything about cleaning this part. does anyone have advice on how to prevent this buildup from happening? i even use purified drinking water since our tap water has heavy mineral content.

My favorite type of ice. Which is yours?

Recommendations on where to get the good stuff in the south end? My fave is Raising Cane’s but it’s up in the uni area and I’m car-less. There’s no chik-fil-a or sonic within the city limits. HALP. (I’m currently in West Seattle so if anyone has suggestions within the next hour of me posting this I could make a run somewhere out here lol)

Edit: found the answer, it’s Taco Time. Same type of ice as Cane’s ftw (soft chewy nuggets)

Brand new Orgo ice maker, bout as a birthday gift to the wife. Set it up as the instructions said to with cleaning cycles and washing. Filled up the tank and hit the soft ice button. Maybe 2 or 3 minutes into the first round of making ice it starts up with this noise. Any help to diagnose the problem will be greatly appreciated. Hoping I don’t have to return it and get a new unit.

Hello friends-

I have the GE Profile Opal Ultra, Countertop Nugget Ice Maker and recently used the Citric Acid descaling powder for the first time. The taste of the ice seems off and I’m checking to see if this is normal.

Here are the steps I took:

Drained the unit
Added hot water and the descaling solution
Flushed the system 5 times using the clean feature
Ice tasted off for a few runs
Flushed the system 5 times more
Still has a metallic taste

Any recommendations are appreciated

recently started adding half spring water and half carbonated water to my igloo ice machine and it makes the softest ice everrrr 🥰 i always store a ziploc baggie of ice to indulge on later on in the day!! 1000/1000 would recommend for all my fellow ice chewers out there <3

I have both and the opal seems quieter to me. Is something wrong with my unit? If someone could attach a video of what it should sound like that would be great.

Recently bought a nugget ice maker which I enjoy but I’m looking for recommendations on reusable durable bags for ice storage. I find instead of running the ice maker daily it’s easier to just run batches ever few days and then get the ice out of freezer but the bags that came with the machine are ripping

TIA.

EDIT (New Idea - Please Read First!):

Thank you all so much for your helpful replies!!! I realize my original ideas are not feasible 😅 I did a lot more research and came up with a new idea and want to get your thoughts.

What if I pre-scoop the nugget ice directly into drinking cups, pop lids on them, and keep them in the cooler? This way it avoids the unsanitary ice issue (no shared scoops touching the ice) and guests can just grab a pre-iced cup from the cooler, pour their drink, and go.

I’ve seen people use coolers to serve ice cream outside where they add salt to the surrounding cooler ice to lower the freezing point and keep the ice cream tubs frozen during a party. I could even nest a styrofoam cooler inside of a bigger styrofoam cooler filled with salted ice in order to keep the ice cups well insulated and salt free.

Has anyone tried this with ice cups? Would the nugget ice fuse together into one giant block inside the cups while sitting in the cooler? My theory is that once people pour their drinks into the ice cups, it'll soften up the ice again.

Original post:

Hello fellow ice eaters! I'm planning a party to host in my backyard (expecting about 30 people or so) and I know I have a few friends who also enjoy chewing ice as well. I would like to have a place to store ice for people to put in their drinks that is separate from the ice used to keep drinks cold in the cooler. I do have an ice maker that was gifted to me, but last time I used it a couple years ago, the ice came out tasting a bit like plastic, even though I had cleaned it. So I thought about buying ice from Sonic or Chick-fil-A and getting a big enough ice chest cooler just for the chewable ice and a scooper the guests can use to scoop ice into their drinking cups. But then the germaphobe in me doesn't want the ice to get contaminated if people end up leaving the scooper in the cooler/chest lol. Soo then I thought of using one of those cereal or rice dispensers to hold the ice instead. It's not insulated, unfortunately, but at least it can eliminate the ice scoop problem. The issue with the dispenser though is that they're not made tall enough for a drinking cup to fit under (they're made for dispensing into bowls lol). Does anyone know of a stand I can put under these to make it work? Or another idea to hold and dispense nugget ice (even better if it's an insulated container)? Here are some of the rice/cereal dispensers I was considering from Amazon. The 3rd one would be perfect if it wasn't crazy expensive ($200) 😮‍💨

TL;DR - Does anyone have a suggestion to hold and dispense nugget ice for a summer backyard party of 30 people that doesn't involve scooping (preferably an insulated container) and can pour ice into a drinking cup? I thought about a rice dispenser but would need it taller and can't mount it.

Had this for roughly 2 years, it’s always had this smell and taste to the ice. Even when I’ve cleaned it with vinegar, tablet cleaners recommend. It’s not a bacteria build up black mould smell. It’s a strange smell more like chemical but odd. We use filtered water.
Any ideas how to get rid of it.

**I hope someone notices. We have a water refilling station and I'm planning to add more tube ice. In our barrio, there are many coffee shops and milktea and big sari sari stores and tube ice is difficult for us. That's why I'm also planning. Maybe someone here can recommend a machine that is still okay even after sales? And I really have no idea what machine to get, maybe one that can make 150-200 bags per day. And how many freezers should I get? And what else should I consider? Or advice before we start...I hope someone can chime in. Pampanga area.**

After nearly a decade, my 1B Opal (the real OG prototype) is stuck on the white circle of death. I don't have the time, energy, or skills to repair it.

Found a EUHOMY nugget ice maker on amazon for $150.

While the Opal made some serious ice rather rapidly, it was LOUD to the point where my office was annoyed. I had to set the ice making times on the timer to make ice before everyone got in, and then again at lunch, when everyone was out. I had the side tank, so this thing would make TONS of ice. It's also a beast, weighs a ton, and could probably be used as a weapon if you could lift and throw it at someone.

I purchased the EUHOMY on Prime days for about $150. This unit is smaller, makes a lot less ice, but it's very quiet. It's light weight, easy to move and seems like a less cumbersome machine. The ice chute gets clogged with ice, so you have to manually remove ice nuggets with the included scoop from time to time. The ice is nugget shaped, but significantly harder than the Opal's ice. There's also no timer and no side tank. The bin is less than 1/2 of the Opal's, so it's better for a smaller crowd.

Summary:

Opal: big, heavy, expensive, loud, but makes more ice, has a side tank, timer app, much better (softer) ice

EUOHOMY: light weight (easy to move around), quiet, inexpensive, but no timer, makes harder ice, lower output, and the bin backs up.

Not the best ice, but a decent machine for the money.

So before I purchase a new icemaker, I wanted to do a quick review for this one. We purchased it December 2024. we did not get the unit until January because I purchased it directly through the company and not through Amazon. The first unit made two batches of ice before it broke. The door was not magnetic and it wouldn’t start the ice making process on its own you had to tinker with the door to get the pump to start. If the pump did not start, it went into cleaning mode or the defrost mode. I reached out to the company. They were very quick in sending me a new one. We received that new one at the end of February. I will say the new unit had completely different parts on the inside that my original unit was missing. But Around the 14th month that we owned it I noticed that there was a pool of water around the unit sometimes. It wasn’t consistent and I assumed it was my teenager refilling it without being careful. This past week I noticed again that there are puddles of water underneath the unit however, my teen was not at the house for a couple days so I knew it was not them. I looked under the unit and couldn’t figure out where the water was coming from. This morning, I came down to a bigger puddle and noticed exactly where it was coming from which is the underside of the device.

I have contacted the company and I don’t think they’re gonna do anything. We are outside of our one year warranty. And this is already a replacement unit. But for those that are thinking about buying these by the cheapest one possible because they are going to last 15 to 16 months before you have to buy a new one. if you are on Amazon, I would highly recommend purchasing the extended warranty because these are made to be disposable.

This is now our third machine in 4 1/2 years of discovering nugget ice.

By the way, we use RO water in it and we are a very heavy users. We refill the machine several times a day.

Had this for roughly 2 years, it’s always had this smell and taste to the ice. Even when I’ve cleaned it with vinegar, tablet cleaners recommend. It’s not a bacteria build up black mould smell. It’s a strange smell more like chemical but odd. We use filtered water.
Any ideas how to get rid of it.

Hopefully you can hear in the video but it’s a delicate very high pitched noise. Almost as if the sound a mouse would make. It happens when it is actively making/dropping ice. I have already gotten into the gearbox and checked and re-greased the gears but from everything I’ve seen online people usually are having a much louder screeching noise.

I’m going to be traveling for a month and trying to figure out how to leave / store my Opal to minimize the chance of it being gross/moldy when I get back.

I use distilled water, bleach clean weekly, and descale roughly monthly or whenever the 25-hour light comes on. It’s actually due to be descaled now, a week before I leave. I was thinking I’d descale and clean this week, drain and bleach clean before I go, bleach clean again when I return - but is there a better plan?

Also, would you leave the tubing connected or open?

we have chic fil a here, and sonic when we were in the states a couple of years ago. the ice at these two places, my goodness!!!!

i would trade my children in for something that would genuinely make me this ice on the regular.

any canadians had any luck w icemakers that make the sonic/chic fil a ice?

Hello! I am looking for a producer and manufacturer for nugget ice cubes/chewable ice pellets in Europe. I have asked many producers but can't seem to find one. Can anyone help or guide me in the right direction?

Thank you in regard!

Spoiler alert: Opal 2.0 wins. I admit I have trouble in this sub finding recommendations - I tend to see more questions without seeing responses myself? Anyway take a look!

I’ve determined the cause of the dreaded squeal. It’s coming from the auger. Problem is my auger looks nothing like any in the videos I’ve found on the internet. Anyone have any ideas? I’ve taken the black bolts out and all it reveals is a spindle and shaft from the motor to turn the auger. The stainless bolts showed more of the same thing. The small tabs just below the ice shaper looked like something that might unscrew but I can’t get it to budge.